


What's in a Name?

by Fledhyris



Series: Familiar Verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (hence the rating), Gen, Sexual Slang, Young Winchesters (Supernatural), soul familiars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 02:56:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19164397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fledhyris/pseuds/Fledhyris
Summary: Young Sam comes up with a name for his familiar in a foreign language and is so proud of himself. Until he learns, too late, that the name is already in popular usage; and it isn't so sweet or innocent.





	What's in a Name?

Soul familiars don’t tend to receive their official names until late childhood; among other reasons, because nobody wants to go through life with a familiar called Mr. Fluffles.

Dean’s coyote is named Lena, for no particular reason he’s ever divulged. Knowing Dean, maybe he just came up with it on the spot, liked the sound of it, and that was that.

Sam took care in finding the right name for his ringtailed cat. He did _research_. One of his favourite TV shows growing up was Hawaii Five-O, the original sixties series with Jack Lord. Stern jawed men like his father, solving crimes (he was hazy as to what Dad actually did, but realised even then that it involved saving lives) and all within an island paradise he could only dream about; and often did.

Sam looked up some library books about Hawaii when he was eight years old. His little familiar seemed particularly taken with the fluffy, colourful flower garlands exchanged by the islanders as tokens of friendship and respect. The way she would lie on Sam’s shoulder, curling her tail around his neck, made it look like a stripey lei. So he named her ‘beautiful flower’ in the native tongue. He was so pleased with himself and their exotic, secret name, its meaning cunningly hidden in a language nobody he met was likely to understand.

He did not at all comprehend why Dean, on first hearing the name, cracked up in howls of laughter, making Lena whine like a nervous fox. Sam sulked, outraged, for days, less because Dean found it funny than because he refused point blank to explain the joke. 

Stubbornly, he stuck with the name, but shortened it to Pua (flower) and that seemed to do the trick. Dean gradually lost interest and when Dad returned from one of his extended trips, he just grunted noncommittally at the news. Whatever Sam named his familiar was entirely his own affair. Dad’s black she-wolf was called, rather unexcitingly, Max. 

By the time Sam discovered, independently, what had tickled Dean, it was far too late to change the name. Besides, she had been Pua for so long, nobody besides him remembered the damning second half. In private though, sometimes, he calls her Nani (beautiful), just between themselves. Because she is.

To this day he colours up when he hears that particular expression for a woman’s private parts. He hates it; hates that such a pure, sweet phrase has been twisted by the vulgarity of idiots like his sex-obsessed brother.

It might have helped Sam to know that ‘Lena’ was an unconscious corruption of ‘Lynda’, as in Lynda Carter, the actress who played Wonder Woman; a formative figure in Dean’s sexual psychology. 

But probably not.

**Author's Note:**

> From Google translate: (English) Beautiful flower - (Hawaiian) Pua nani
> 
> The entire story arose from me trying to think up a name for Sam's familiar and playing with Google Translate until this came up.
> 
> Max, obviously, is a reference to the main (female) character in Dark Angel, which also starred Jensen Ackles. (Yes I know they had cat, not wolf, DNA.) Also a nod to a big Czech Shepherd we know.
> 
> Lena actually just came to me, fully formed; I retrofitted an explanation to fit the story. And to serve Dean right.
> 
> I also found out that leis can be made of just about any material you can string together, but most commonly consist of fresh natural foliage.


End file.
